Though Beijing’s Olympic Stadium now sits largely abandoned outside of hosting the occasional opera or temporary ski park, the building — known colloquially as the Bird’s Nest — was the centerpiece of China’s cultural and socioeconomic hopes in the years leading up to the 2008 Summer Games. To prepare for their time in the international spotlight, China poured $43 billion into their Olympic efforts, improving their transportation and communications systems, but also disrupting daily life for the average citizen.

Writer/director Miao Wang takes a closer look at Beijing’s transformation in the years leading up to the Olympics through the lens of taxi drivers in her evocative documentary “Beijing Taxi,” which debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this month. Wang, who was born and raised in Beijing but moved to the U.S. in 1990, says she first began developing the film in November 2006.

“I have strong memories of taxi drivers from my childhood, because they tend to be extremely talkative in Beijing,” said Wang, who purposefully wanted to tell her story from the perspective of the “lao bai xing,” or general public. “So I thought they would make perfect candidates to tell the story of everything that was going on in China at the time.”

In her film, Wang focuses on three drivers in particular: Bai Jiwen, a man in his 50s who lived through the Cultural Revolution; Wei Caixia, a mother in her mid-30s who longs to start her own business; and Zhou Yi, a thirty-something man happy with the status quo. Wang found her subjects the simplest way she knew how: by riding a lot taxis.

Though some potential subjects were nervous about being filmed — China has a notoriously strict screening process for films that portray the country in a negative light — others were happy to talk to her, and because Wang would often set up her camera in the backseat, they’d often forget they were even being filmed. Wang herself chose not to ask for permission from the government to film, lest they turn her down, or worse, order her not to return to the country. “Besides, most of the time, I was constantly in motion and shooting in a moving vehicle,” she said. “So it was less likely for me to get found out.”

In total, Wang took five trips to Beijing, and though each trip lasted a month and a half, she and her cinematographer typically only shot footage within a two-week window. She eventually finished the film about a week before its premiere at South By Southwest, and is currently seeking distribution.

Wang notes that social media and the Internet played a large part in helping her finish the film. She literally ran out of money for post-production of her documentary, and as she wrote in blog post for producer Ted Hope’s website, luckily was able to raise $10,000 in 30 days through the online funding platform Kickstarter. “When people have a true, concrete sense of what you need, I think they’re more apt to help you,” said Wang. “Even people who couldn’t offer me money, such as one publicist, offered their services instead, which was just as good.”

The filmmaker said she’s also received good feedback from Twitter and her film’s Facebook fan page, both of which she said she updated regularly with new material, as to keep her followers apprised of new developments.

As for other outside help?

“In the end, I’ve found I have to rely on myself for everything,” Wang said. “So is the life of an independent filmmaker.”

About Speakeasy

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